ROME, November 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at the opening of the 23rd plenary assembly for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the president of the Council, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, warned, "The idea of creating a 'new man' completely detached from the Judeo-Christian tradition, a new 'world order,' a new 'global ethic,' is gaining ground."

According to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal denounced the "dictatorship of relativism," rampant in Western societies, in which there is a growing "anti-Christian attitude" that makes "attacks on Christians, and particular on Catholics, pass off as politically correct." (And who are some of the biggest proponents of 'Political Correctness'? Are you familiar with the USCCB?)

Speaking of Christians today he said, "Our true problem is not being a minority, but rather having voluntarily become marginal, irrelevant, because of our lack of courage, so that we will be left alone, because of our mediocrity." "For Christians," Cardinal Rylko added, "the moment has arrived to free themselves from a false inferiority complex … to be valiant witnesses of Christ." (He just perfectly described the state of Catholicism in North America and Western Europe. And we allowed this to happen.)

This is, he said, the "hour of the laity," to take on their "responsibility in the diverse fields of public life, from politics to the promotion of life and family, from work to the economy, from education to the formation of youth." (The "hour of the laity" is exactly why we have so many idiots believing that they are now somehow members of the clergy. Minister of this... minister of that... I have a novel idea. How about priests being priests, instead of social workers with better finery?))

He warned, however, that such faithfulness would come at a personal cost. "Whoever wants to live and act according to the Gospel of Christ has to pay a price, even in the highly liberal societies of the West," he said. (And many that have been faithful, have been thrown under the bus by our own courageous shepherds.)But anyhow, the "New Order" has been around for quite some time.